Black Widow Spider

[kurlyq2g]

no no, you see, the spiders are really a fancy new way of keeping your skin young and firm.. they lay the eggs all around your head and as the eggs grow they firm out your wrinkles...

then you just simply inject the spidr-b-gone face friendly pesticide into your cheeks, eyebrows, nose and chin to keep the spider colony growing in your face from bursting out of your skin.

at least thats what the friendly sales associate told me

 

[pieceofmyheart]

How much you want to bet someone would pay for that?

 

[high_hopes]

Isn't that a nasty sound? Squishing something like that with your shoe? *quivers*

 

[high_hopes]

I used to live in Florida - had my share of cockroach encounters. I won't go near the fukkers.

 

[Fat Albert]

I used to live in Florida - had my share of cockroach encounters. I won't go near the fukkers.

That's the heart of my problem with warm climates. Without winter, the bugs just keep growing and growing. Happiness is opening a window on the first warm day of March and not having to lower the screen....

Cheers!
Fat A

P.S. Spiders SUCK. I'm terrified of bees. I loathe spiders. Widows are nasty, but brown recluse bites are even worse. Large chunks of black, necrotized flesh. Hourglasses and fiddles....Nature's warning signals.

 

[Tarkus]

Ooooh cockroaches. Bastards. Don't you just love when you are hanging around outside and one of those big sumbitches flies into you? Tokin the joint and a roach smacks into my face. Happens way to often, and it sucks. I am talking one of those 2-3 inchers too. Meh, but they are harmless so I just kill the one that did it. I don't take revenge and seek and destroy like I do with spiders. I also hate June bugs, because all they ever do is smack into ya.

They are fun to hit with hairspray and a lighter though, damn fun. Like little airplanes being shot down into flames.

 

[Laxpunker]

Ooooh cockroaches. Bastards. Don't you just love when you are hanging around outside and one of those big sumbitches flies into you? Tokin the joint and a roach smacks into my face. Happens way to often, and it sucks. I am talking one of those 2-3 inchers too. Meh, but they are harmless so I just kill the one that did it. I don't take revenge and seek and destroy like I do with spiders. I also hate June bugs, because all they ever do is smack into ya.

They are fun to hit with hairspray and a lighter though, damn fun. Like little airplanes being shot down into flames.

Be careful doing that stuff. I lit a spider on fire much the same way in my garage, damn thing scuttled under a very flammable chair. For a minute I thought I'd be a contender for the Darwin Award.

 

[NiteTiger]

Then youre really not going to want to hear the stories of them laying eggs in your cheek. True story I knew someone who worked as a nurse and this woman complained of swelling in her cheek. Turns out there was a spiders nest in there. Now if that doesnt creep you out then nothing will.

Sounded familiar, so I had to hit trusty old Snopes.

Lo and behold:

Legend: A swelling on a girl's cheek breaks open and disgorges hundreds of baby spiders.

Examples:


[Healey and Glanvill, 1996]

A woman well-known to our family friends was the travelling type, always hopping off to exotic places. One year, she set her heart on Guatemala in Central America. She went with an adventure holiday tour, which took people into the wild interior -- lots of hacking through jungle with a machete and bivouacking overnight amidst the sounds of the rainforest. The woman was game and loved roughing it, so she wasn't at all fazed by all the creepie-crawlies everywhere, and had one of the best holidays she could remember.

When she returned home to England, she noticed that a bite on her cheek she had sustained early on in the jungle had not healed up and was beginning to itch. She put some cream on it and thought no more about it.

After a few days, however, the swelling had grown very bad indeed, and soon, despite applying various creams, the woman looked in the mirror and saw the whole cheek was red, itchy and inflamed. Finally, finding the irritation too much, the woman gave her cheek a really good scratch. At which the skin cracked, and hundreds of tiny spiders burst out, scattering away across her face.

[Smith, 1986]

A girl I know from Glasgow went on holiday with friends to the coast of North Africa -- she had a terrific time. The only problem they had during the visit was on the last day when they had an invasion of small insects -- particularly spiders. These appeared to have been blown out to the coast from the desert and all you could do was to keep brushing them away.

In spite of this they managed to get a few hours sunbathing in, during which my friend was bitten on her face by the spiders a couple of times. Thinking no more about it, she simply applied an antiseptic cream to the bites and forgot them.

By the time she had returned to Glasgow the bites were looking rather inflamed and beginning to look like boils. In spite of further treatment, they refused to subside so she eventually thought it best to arrange to visit the doctor the following day.

Going to the bathroom the next morning she saw in the mirror that the bites looked even worse. She had just begun to carefully wash her face when she felt a sharp pricking sensation. Looking in the mirror again she was horrified and began to scream hysterically. The boils had burst and crawling all over her face and in her hair were hundreds of tiny baby spiders.

Variations:

*
The victim is invariably a woman.

*
She picks up this horrific facial infestation while vacationing somewhere warm and exotic. Mexico, Spain, plus a host of African and South American countries are mentioned.

*
Sometimes the woman opens the wound herself, but in other versions she consults a doctor who lances the bulge for her.

*
Occasionally the unfortunate vacationer is said to suffer a heart attack or go mad upon seeing those spiders come flying out of her face, but the overwhelming majority of the tellings end with the arachnidic eruption -- we don't hear what happened to the woman afterwards, nor do we really care.

Origins: According
to oral lore, spiders have been erupting from girl's cheeks since the mid-1960s. According to arachnid experts, no self respecting spider will lay its eggs on or in a human, a fact that roots this story squarely in the realm of lore. Yes, there are other insects and crawly things out there that will use an unsuspecting person as a creche. But not a spider.

A likely antecedent to this legend is a 1842 Jeremias Gotthelf short story titled "Die Schwarze Spinne." In it, a woman makes a pact with the Devil, which is sealed by his kiss on her cheek. When the Devil is cheated by villagers, a black boil begins to grow on the spot where he bussed her. It eventually bursts and venomous spiders crawl out of it. Though this is not a precise match, it shares enough elements in common with the legend in question (the victim is a woman, the lump grows noticeably before breaking open, the eruption occurs on her cheek, spiders come out of the opening) to be considered significant.

At different times, spider eruption stories have skittered their way into the media. In 1998 in Britain, for example, a 30-year-old equities salesman just returned from a week in Mexico awoke to notice a bloody eruption on his right thigh. The doctor he consulted told him "It is common to be bitten by spiders around here" and "It has probably laid eggs, so do not scratch." No spiders ever came out of the wound (how could they, after all?), but that didn't stop a number of those who had seen this story or its "no spiders yet" followup from remembering the reports quite differently. Memories of what they'd read changed over time, with a bulge on the man ballooning ever outward until it burst open, spewing deadly spiders everywhere even as tropical disease specialists stood helplessly by.

Folklorists have classified this tale as a women's story, told primarily by women to women, because it reflects their disgust and revulsion towards insects and couples this reaction with a terror of anything happening to their looks. The location of the bite (on the cheek) is considered important in that not only do creepy-crawlies explode out of a human, but they ruin the person's face in the process. In the mind's eye, one sees not only the spiders bursting forth, but the gaping wound their frantic exit leaves behind.

Barbara "tropical fantasy" Mikkelson

Sightings: This legend turns up in the following films: Bliss (1985), The Nature of the Beast (1987), and The Believers (1987).

Itsy bitsy spider, caught in the doggies snout
Down came POMH and stomped the spider out

<3 ya POMH

 

[Vaguerant]

A spider bite will cause necrosis (the flesh will die) in the area of the bite. It leaves a large "crater". It does hurt a good deal too.

 

[Laxpunker]

Depends on the kinda spider and how the poison works on the body...however quite a few spiders (Hobo and Brown Recluse come to mind) do cause necrosis...and from the looks of it it hurts alot more than a good deal.

 

[Tarkus]

Be careful doing that stuff. I lit a spider on fire much the same way in my garage, damn thing scuttled under a very flammable chair. For a minute I thought I'd be a contender for the Darwin Award.

Hahahaha, oh man, that reminds me...Back when I was a Boy Scout a couple of friends and I decided it would be a swell idea to use Off! and a lighter to knock some wasps down a couple pegs. The wasp nest was hanging off of the pottery merit badge's wooden shade shelter. Well, flaming flying wasps were cool and all, but almost burning down the shade while we were supposed to be at lunch was not cool. A BIG ASS black spot on the ceiling....I don't know where it came from, I was at lunch man.

 

[high_hopes]

Years ago when I was living with my G-mother in Florida, I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I am half asleep, one eye open, yada yada yada. I turn on the light and see a giant cockroach on the bathroom floor. This guy was the king of all cockroaches - had his own zip code and everything. I couldn't go to the bathroom and I was too much of a pussy to kill it/move it. So I wake up my 84 year old G-mother who has macular degeneration to get the cockroach. So she gets up and gets her dust pan and broom, kneels down and is constantly asking me if she has it.

Quite a moment. But she got it. And I relieved myself. The end.

 

[baccas125]

Creepy

 

[robobond]

Years ago when I was living with my G-mother in Florida, I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I am half asleep, one eye open, yada yada yada. I turn on the light and see a giant cockroach on the bathroom floor. This guy was the king of all cockroaches - had his own zip code and everything. I couldn't go to the bathroom and I was too much of a pussy to kill it/move it. So I wake up my 84 year old G-mother who has macular degeneration to get the cockroach. So she gets up and gets her dust pan and broom, kneels down and is constantly asking me if she has it.

Quite a moment. But she got it. And I relieved myself. The end.

That would be a palmetto bug. Us down in Florida have to deal with them and yes they are quite a nasty thing to see in the middle of the night.

 

[Guest]

I found this girl chillin in my front garden. Looks like she's been eating good from all the flies in the web.

 

[Nikijad4210]

Shut up about the roaches already!!! It's bad enough we have a few still scurrying around the house that haven't been killed yet, don't need to be reminded of them on my get-away site!

Ugh, nasty bastards *shivers* My mom had a ficus tree in her bedroom, and to keep the soil moist between waterings, she layered the top of the pot with sphagnum moss....Low and behold, after a year and a fucking half, a roach takes up residence in the moss. She shrugs it off, "It's fine, it's not bothering anybody." She refuses to kill it, or dump it outside.....So come to find out last week, the motherfuck bred and the tree pot's full of roaches.....I emptied a can of raid in the damn thing, killed most of them, around 2 dozen dead fuckers....around 6 got away.....I killed 3 one night (after one scurried across my hand on the mouse and past my fingers on the keyboard----yeah, I screamed) One was stepped on in the hallway, and another one met his death at my feet at the comp yesterday (crushed the fucker with an incense burner.....about 50 times) I will NOT touch these things dead or alive, I tried to flick it away with a peice of paper, and my mom walks in and says something along the lines of, "You fucking sissy, it's dead." She proceeds to grab a tissue, pick it up, and shove it in my face. I damn near tipped the computer chair over.......

That tree sat dead for about 6 months (used to be outside, had to bring it inside after we moved here, didn't adapt to shade very well) I hacked it to bits with my mom holding a can of Raid watching for fleeing bitches.....It's in the county dump now, THANK GOD. I no longer jump at the sound of something rustling, and jump a lot less and the sight of a damn dark spot (like the HP thing on our printer) or a shadow on the desk.....

I think the last bastard's hiding under her bed......It'll die soon enough.....We don't need bugs in this house, I won't allow that shit (just the Daddy Long Legs in the A/C vent, he's fine)

And yes, Palmetto bugs are a pain down here......Ugliest motherfuckers I've ever seen.....And those blood red flying beetles (and the black ones) aren't any better.....

 

[Sativa_Fan]

Years ago when I was living with my G-mother in Florida, I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I am half asleep, one eye open, yada yada yada. I turn on the light and see a giant cockroach on the bathroom floor. This guy was the king of all cockroaches - had his own zip code and everything. I couldn't go to the bathroom and I was too much of a pussy to kill it/move it. So I wake up my 84 year old G-mother who has macular degeneration to get the cockroach. So she gets up and gets her dust pan and broom, kneels down and is constantly asking me if she has it.

Quite a moment. But she got it. And I relieved myself. The end.

Just be lucky it wasn't a huntsman spider You guys have em in Florida, too. Not sure if in your grandma's particular area, though. They're very large, hairy, non-tarantula spiders. They are also amazingly agile and REALLY fast. They can get bigger than your hand and love to live inside of homes behind pictures, between cracks, basically anywhere :-D

They're not harmless, but they don't pose a big threat to people. Their venom is mild and isn't dangerous unless you're allergic. They're very secretive and are quick (very, very, very quick) to get outta your way.